The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Members-Only Pod: Episode 23

Episode Date: June 11, 2021

This is a sample of the Munk Members-Only Podcast. The program provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. This week's Munk members only podcast explores three topics: as the G7 prepares to meet, questions are being asked about its relevance in a world reshaped by the pandemic – should the G7 become a forum to push back against the rise of China? How do smaller countries like Canada navigate the multilateralism of the post-COVID era?; the U.S. logs another month of surging inflation up 5% year over year – are we on the cusp of a 1970s style surge in inflation? Have policy makers become too complacent about the inflation threat?; and we end the podcast with a frank discussion about “mansplaining” – is the tone of the Munk Members podcast respectful of gender? How can women and men talk to each other effectively? To access the full length episode consider becoming a Munk Member. Membership is free. Simply log on to www.munkdebates.com/membership to register. Under your membership profile page you will find a link to listen to the full length editions of Munk Members Podcast. If you like what the Munk Debates is all about consider becoming a Supporting Member. For as little as $9.99 monthly you receive unlimited access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, monthly newsletter, ticketing privileges at our live and online events and a charitable tax receipt (for Canadian residents). To explore you Munk Membership options visit www.munkdebates.com/membership. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, Monk podcast listeners. The following is a sample of the Monk members-only podcast. To access the full-length edition of this episode and all of our regular Monk members-only podcasts, go to our website, www.W.Munk Debates.com and register for membership. Membership is free, and it's available for you right now at www.munkdebates.com. Hope you enjoy the program. Hello, Monk members. Rudyard Griffiths here, host and moderator of the Monk Debates. Bates, welcome to this, our regular weekly monk members-only podcast. It's a half-hour conversation where we dive into the big issues and events in the news, hopefully give you some original analysis and insights. And to do all this, we are joined by Janice Gross Stein. She's the founding

director, the Monk School of Global Affairs, an internationally renowned author and commentator, and she's all ours for the next 30 minutes. Janice, great to be in conversation with you today. So good to be with you and the whole monk community. The first topic we have to address, Janice, is kind of forward-looking. It's going to be this series of major international summits that Joe Biden will be engaging in, including the G7 with our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, all culminating in what is perceived of, I guess, is a kind of high-stakes meeting with Vladimir Putin? Is there the potential here for some kind of understanding between these two world?

leaders on the balance of power. I want your take, though, on the relevancy of the G7. I mean, right now, this collection of countries are post-COVID, the most indebted in the world. They have shown themselves, I think, like a lot of countries around the world, to have really struggled with this virus. They've struggled in terms of the government response, in terms of their ability, let's say, compared to China, compared to Taiwan, compared to Vietnam, compared to a lot of countries who are not in the G7 to contain COVID. So is this kind of a losers club, Janice, the G7 in 2021? Well, I think calling them a losers club is pushing the envelope just a little bit, Richard. But you're getting at something that I think is really important. This is not the G7 of

five years ago. It just is not. If you look inside every one of these countries, Britain faces huge problems. And by the way, its cases are going back up against. You know, Germany, there is division within the governing party, a contested election. Angola Merkel is leaving. All bets are off. Macon, the golden boy of those who believe the world was coming back to the familiar, move to the right now, to deal with Marie de Paine and under tremendous pressure at home. So you're right to put your finger on the fact that this is a club of leaders with big problems at home. Now, they still got something done.

And the something they got done is a global tax, a global corporate tax, which they are now going to take on the road. They're going to take this show on the road to the G20, if they can't get the G20 to buy in, it doesn't really matter. But this has been a longstanding issue. I know how worried you are about debt, but if governments have the capacity to impose a 15% tax on companies who generate revenue within their jurisdiction,

even for a country like Canada, that is a non-trivial addition. to the revenue side of the ledger. Now, that was a G7 project. It could have gone another way. Biden was threatening to act on his own to undercut, frankly, what the consensus around the level was. But this only succeeds if you can't play the game of arbitrage,

which the big companies have been so successful doing over the last 20 years. So this may be a moment where this gets, reverse that's not small no no that's not insignificant it's just i guess a perception here that biden is is also out there trying to sell this idea of a kind of 21st century league of democracies yeah and they've invited uh india to kind of observe the talks or some suggestion i guess that india could conceivably um join uh the g7 i guess if they buy into um you know the theory of the case what do you think about that kind of conflation of a much bigger kind of geopolitical argument

about how the world should work versus what's traditionally been, as you say, on taxes, a more economic, more practical focus for the G7. Is the G7 a danger here of becoming politicized, of becoming simply a wedge for a new version of U.S. power that is dressed up in these egalic terms. of democracy and freedom and human rights. So the G7's been politicized. That's not new. It's been politicized since 9-11.

It's always been politicized. It says it has an economic agenda. You know, in my world, you can't separate the politics from the economics. But I do actually have concerns about what Biden is doing here. And this is this longstanding discussion of D-10, democracy 10, you know, Add in Australia, India, South Korea. And you hear it again and again in Biden's speeches. On a good day, it's can democracies deliver for their citizens?

We are being tested. On a not so good day, can we line up the democracies to fight the holy war against China? Now, if that, if it's that, if it's that second message, you make a conflict with China much more difficult. It goes much deeper because it becomes an ideological conflict. And once that happens, the zone for engagement, the zone for any kind of improved trading relationship, all those issues, foreign direct investment, all those issues just get tougher to resolve because they're the bad guys and we're the good guys.

And we love telling ourselves that we're the good guys. And this little detail that the vast majority of the world isn't democratic and doesn't share our values, doesn't bother us because we just keep saying our values are universal. But we say it to a group of countries that believe it, but it's a minority of the world. So I actually think the people around Biden, the Jake Sullivan's, his National Security Advisor, have backed off that. just a little bit. There was talk of a big global democracy summit, a summit among all those committed to democracy. It's not happening.

So we're seeing this, I think, in the administration, as opposed to Biden himself, this is moving off center to a more rhetorical kind of discussion. But boy, if you listen to Biden's speeches, he got ready to go, it was. the good guys against the bad guys, we are the good ones, sign an Atlantic charter with Force Johnson. Now, what did that recall?

The charter that FDR and Winston Churchill signed before the war against the Nazis. Just look at that imagery. Right. And finally, what, you know, what's Canada's positioning in all this? Because as we've talked before, you know, middle powers like Canada in the older, I think we can say it's now older liberal international order really benefited from all the liberalization, cooperation, multilateralism. We're now moving into this kind of return of bipolarity, a return of great power conflict between China and the United States. Does it make sense for us to play

along with this idea of repositioning these global institutions, including the G7 for, let's hope it's not conflict, but certainly heightened competition, with China? I mean, do we have a choice? If you think about Angela Merkel, and Germany is a much more powerful player in the world than Canada is, and Germany doesn't live next door to the United States. Let's make that clear. And that is a big, big issue always for Canada, given our integrated supply chains and our trading relationship. But Angela Merkel has resisted this agenda. And why is that? because Germany industry exports to China, the car exports from Germany, the heavy industry, the tooling. That is a big piece of the economic pie for Germany.

And, you know, this is a longstanding German tradition in the earlier phases in the earlier Cold War. It was after all the Germans who talked about Ostpolitik or reaching out to the Russians. So Canada's not alone. in not wanting to be squished in the sandwich there and caught in the trap. It's just harder for us because one, we're smaller, and we live next door to the United States. And also, Biden is a president that Canada likes. This is the familiar, nice guy that we're used to dealing with who talks about multilateral institutions, even while he's developing the most muscular by America and made in America economic agenda

that we've seen in 50 years, frankly. So these are hard times, as I've said from Canada. I think that people around the Prime Minister are happy that there's person-to-person contact again, that leaders are able to gather in these informal settings because country like Canada, with a very likable prime minister, always does well, relatively speaking, when the meetings are personal.

But the structural challenge is registered, they go deep for Canada. You've been listening to a sample of the Monk Members Only podcast. To access the rest of the episode, consider becoming a member. Membership is free and available at www.wunkdebates.com. Once you've joined as a member,

go to your membership profile to access the rest of this episode and all of our monk members' podcasts. Thanks for listening.